Bollinger Brut Champagne La Grande Année 2014

98 points Antonio Galloni (Vinous): "Bollinger’s 2014 La Grande Année is a great way to start the evening as guests mill around Wheeler Farms. It is early evening in Napa, but there is still plenty of action in the winery, where various lots are being pressed under the watchful eye of winemaker Nigel Kinsman. There are some moments where I would very much like to be a civilian, a regular person enjoying the night, but I am more concerned with our guests having a great night, so I quickly go back to check on our wines. The Bollinger 2014 is everything I expected; bright, focused and full of all the energy this late-ripening vintage conferred to the best wines. Drink: 2024-2044. (Feb 2023)"

97 points/'#1 Top Wine of 2022,' Audrey Frick (JebDunnuck.com): "Raised entirely in barrel, the 2014 Champagne La Grande Année Brut is all about finesse and capturing the cool, mineral tension and floral notes of the vintage. Enhancing those qualities, a bit higher proportion of Chardonnay was used for this release, making up 39% of the blend. It pours a pale straw, and it is layered and persistent with lightly toasted pastry, Mirabel plum liqueur, and saline. The palate is dry and more tightly wound at this stage, with driving citrus, a chalky texture, and a light phenolic finish. Subtle undercurrents of honey and butterscotch should continue to evolve beautifully over the coming decades. Disgorged December 2021, it has 7 grams per liter of dosage. Drink: 2024-2044. (11/7/22)"

97 points Wine Spectator: "[$190 list] Racy acidity drives this mouthwatering Champagne, enlivening the rich panoply of flavors. Features a fine and creamy mousse that's still a lively springboard for aromas and flavors of crème de cassis, glazed tangerine, roasted hazelnut, ground coffee, pickled ginger and white blossoms. Long and satiny, with minerally salt and chalk notes gaining momentum on the lasting finish. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Disgorged July 2021. Drink now through 2037. (4/6/22)"

97 points Anne Krebiehl, MW (Falstaff): "A lovely savoury edge – almost of salty maple syrup – appears on the subtle, salty nose. The palate is taut in shape but rich and generous in flavour, reminiscent of apple streusel with a serene, creamy, smooth texture that is carried and defined by freshness. The mousse is fine, the shape is taut, there is a mouth-watering and appetising saltiness that carries this forward but the creamy richness – of salty buttery streusel – is undeniable. Splendid now, certain to evolve. Utterly fresh, bright, vivid. (1/1/22)"

97 points/'Cellar Selection,' Wine Enthusiast: "[$190 list] With the hallmark Bollinger richness that is derived from fermentation in wood and a high percentage of Pinot Noir in the blend, this grand wine is ripe, full of apple and spice flavors. It is drinkable now, but still young. Keep until 2024. Alcohol 12%. (Sep 2022)"

96+ points Sarah Mayo (The Wine Independent): "Revealing its refined pedigree in spades, Bollinger’s Grand Année 2014 is a 61% Pinot Noir and 39% Chardonnay, an expressly higher percentage of Chardonnay than usual to capture the excellent quality found in the 2014 harvest. Traditionally 100% fermented in small oak barrels, the wine remained in contact with the lees until bottling in May the following year, aged on fine lees until it was manually riddled and disgorged February 2023 with a seven gram per liter dosage. Burnished yellow gold with pinpoint columns of bubbles emerging, it first unfurls with an airy swirl of minerality that overlays richer aromas of warm apple tarte, lemon curd, butter sablé cookies, toast and nuts. Full-bodied, beautifully balanced and filled with verve, the palate is as lithe and winsome as it is textural and intense, with an electric shimmer of acidity bringing freshness and bright salinity to a long, long finish. Drink: 2023-2040. (11/8/23)"

96 points Tom Hewson (Decanter): "Grande Année manages to be both deeply resonant and surprisingly subtle in 2014 – a delicious conundrum. Beneath fragrant blackberry and roasted plum fruit sits the richness of chestnut honey, rye bread and cocoa. There’s zesty brightness and roasted orchard fruit, perfectly integrated and composed, shaped with precision and energy. One of the top 2014s. Six and a half years on lees. Drinking Window: 2023-2040. (4/28/23)"

94-96 points Essi Avellan, MW: "61% Pinot Noir, 39% Chardonnay. This is an intriguing combination of a sunny year's forward fruitiness and the freshness of a late September harvest. There is a charming reserve to the cool nose, which has plentiful orchard fruit but also vanilla and yeasty and spicy tones from oak and bottle ageing. The gentle oaky note stays stylishly in the background. There is some volume on the lace-textured palate, but this wine plays much less on concentration and weight than we are used to with La Grande Année. Instead, its finest feature is the sensation of minerality and finesse. Disgorged 10/21; dosage 8g/l. (Aug 2022)"

95 points William Kelley (Wine Advocate): "Offering up complex aromas of crisp yellow orchard fruit, confit citrus, frangipane, walnuts, dried white flowers and subtle hints of iodine, Bollinger's 2014 Brut La Grande Année is medium to full-bodied, pillowy and vinous, with an elegantly fleshy core of fruit that's underpinned by racy acids and complemented by a pretty pinpoint mousse. Concluding with a long, chalky finish, this is a charming but precise Grande Année that's more giving and demonstrative than its immediate predecessor, the 2012, but which attains a very similar level of quality in a more challenging vintage—testimony to the serious viticulture that underpins Bollinger's contemporary excellence. Drink: 2021-2045. (Mar 2022)"

95 points Tom Hewson (TimAtkin.com): "61% Pinot Noir, 39% Chardonnay. Fermentation in old oak. Carrying on from the sunny 2012, the 2014 Grande Année offers one of the more precise, clear-eyed iterations of this cuvée to date, framing the house's trademark briny, dry-spicy savour with some detail of dried flowers, bright citrus zest and apricot. This cuvée will need five years in the cellar to further harmonise its measured intensity and acidic focus, although it will be happy for much longer. Very fine. (Dec 2022)"

95 points Bettane & Desseauve Guide (2024).

94 points John Gilman (View From the Cellar): "‘The 2014 Bollinger “la Grande Année” Brut Millésime is crafted this year from a cépages of sixty-one percent pinot noir and thirty-nine percent chardonnay, with all of the vins clairs barrel fermented in Bollinger’s collection of old casks. The wine was aged sur latte for six and a half years prior to its disgorgement in December of 2021 and finished with a dosage of eight grams per liter. The wine offers up a beautifully refined bouquet of apple, peach, warm bread, a complex base of soil, gentle smokiness, hazelnut and plenty of upper register smokiness. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied, focused and beautifully complex, with a fine core of fruit, excellent soil undertow and grip, elegant mousse and a long, poised and impeccably balanced finish. This is a beautiful wine that is drinking with distinction today, but has decades of life ahead of it. 2022-2055. (Jul/Aug 2022)"